What Darian DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball's 93-64 Loss at Purdue

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Indiana men's basketball coach Darian DeVries and senior forward Tucker DeVries spoke to the media after the Hoosiers (17-10, 8-8 Big Ten) suffered a 93-64 loss at Purdue (22-5, 12-4 Big Ten) on Friday night at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette.

Here's what the DeVries duo said during their near-eight-minute postgame press conference.

Q: Darian, just how do you coach a team — it's a veteran team — but a team through a night like this where it just sort of feels like offense is a struggle, eventually defense kind of becomes a struggle. Just how do you sort of keep a team together and focused on a night like this?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Nights like these are hard. I mean, obviously, everybody knows how good Purdue is. And when they're playing at a level like this, it makes it incredibly challenging. So, I thought they were terrific, responded incredibly well from a tough loss against Michigan. Michigan wasn't losing anybody that night in the last game. But I thought they did everything they needed to do to put us in some tough spots tonight and took advantage of it, especially on the offensive end. We just could never get them under control.”

Q: Coach, what did you feel were the biggest issues that led to the rebounding disparity in this game?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I thought the biggest thing was their inside presence is something that with both their fours and fives, it is a challenge for us to either play one-on-one or make the decision to double. And it seemed like they had an answer for whatever we did. So, we doubled some, we didn't double some. We came with different guys, and they seemed to have a solution for a lot of it. The offensive rebounding, they ended up with six. Now, they didn't miss a ton of first ones. So, I thought we were battling on the offensive glass. We just couldn't get enough first shot stops. That was probably even more of a bigger problem for us.”

Q: Darian, in terms of, you guys had a lot of foul trouble, obviously, especially in the first half. Do you think the guys got thrown off at all by that in the second? Coming out of halftime, not sure how to go at them defensively without kind of drawing a foul. Do you think that threw you guys off at all?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I don't think so. I mean, I thought we got through the half fine. They had, I think it was 15 free throw attempts in the first half. That was, not keeping them off the line is a big part of getting stops too. ‘Cause if they were to score from the free throw line, they'd score well enough without getting freebies from there. So, certainly the foul trouble was part of it. But no, I thought our guys were playing. Got through the half pretty much in good shape. Conor had the three, which makes it challenging for him. But overall, no, it didn't have an impact on the game.”

Q. Coach, you took two timeouts before that under-16 timeout in the second half. What did you see go wrong from the time your team left that locker room to that second timeout?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I thought we came out offensively, I thought we got some really good looks in those first few possessions — didn't convert on them. But I just didn't think defensively, again, I didn't think we had them under control at all to start the half and didn't want to have happen what happened and have it get away from us too quickly. So, trying to burn the timeouts early to see if we can grab something, get something going, but we just couldn't get anything going there.”

Q. Just how much of what happened here, what happened in Champaign, what happened at these loud, high level road environments is just raw execution? Or just is it raw skill? And just what do you think is kind of that hindrance when you guys play these high level squads?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “It's an incredible environment. It's a tough place to play. It's what makes this home court advantage what it is. These type of environments do present some challenges and stuff. And that's what makes college basketball so great. We have a similar advantage at our place, great environment. It's tough to come in there and win. It's tough to come in here and win. You gotta play well. And I thought we didn't do our part tonight and certainly Purdue was on point tonight. They played really well.”

Q. Coach, you got 12 points in 26 minutes out of Tayton Conerway tonight. How important is he down the stretch of the rest of the regular season?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “I thought he came in, gave us some good minutes tonight. I thought he did a good job of getting downhill, getting some paint touches, getting to the rim. Certainly gives us a little burst there that I thought he did a good job of taking advantage of.”

Q. Coach, you only had eight attempts from three in the first half. I think Lamar didn't make a shot from the field. What were they taking away? And do you feel like you guys, it seemed like once you guys figured out to get in the paint and get some back cuts and dives, that that was the answer.

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, and we certainly came in with a game plan of doing that. We wanted to get paint touches, ‘cause even in our first game in the second half, they did a good job of limiting the amount of 3s that we got. To come out ahead on that one, they still did a pretty good job defending us. So, we wanted to get more paint touches. I just thought they had us on our heels until we got going a little bit. Tayton got in there, was able to get downhill. We got more paint touches, opened it up. So, we just couldn't get enough stops to have it mean anything for us really the whole night.”

Q: Tucker, what's the level of frustration after a loss like this, especially given that it's to Purdue?

TUCKER DEVRIES: “I mean obviously it's pretty difficult. But I think it's important for us to understand that we got some big four games coming up down the stretch, and we're playing for a lot right now. And I think it's important that there's not much that we can do right now about the previous game, but we can learn from it and move on to the next one and use this to get ready for these next four games that are massive for us trying to make that NCAA tournament, which we've certainly put ourself in a position to play meaningful games coming down the stretch of the season.”

Q: Darian, Tucker just kind of hit on this a little bit. But after these two losses to Illinois and Purdue, pretty wide margin, how do you keep the team focused on this stretch run that really means so much to get into the NCAA tournament?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “These guys will be focused. They'll be ready to go on Tuesday. They have been all year. We played two really good teams, got beat on the road. Disappointed that we weren't maybe certainly more competitive in the games to make it come down to the stretch, but we gotta let those go. We gotta go beat Northwestern. And that's a Northwestern team that's put up a good fight every single night. So, we gotta go home and we gotta take advantage of being at home now. And that's our main priority.”

Q: Given the urgency of late February, how important is it that you just wash this away? Learn what you can from it and wash it away. How important is it coming off this that you get to go home for three games?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “We can't hang on to this one very long. I mean, it's right here. It's that stretch run right now. So, the only thing that matters is your next one. And we gotta go home, get ready. We’ve got a couple days to do it. So, Tuesday's the next big one. And that's what our focus will be.”

Q: Trent, just another game single digit minutes for him. I guess, as it kind of unraveled for you guys, was there ever a thought of maybe getting him in and trying to mix things up a little bit, even though that's not ultimately what happened?

DARIAN DEVRIES: “Yeah, I mean, we continued to battle almost right up to the end there. We had the guys out there that we thought could certainly continue to do that. Guys have been in the rotations a little bit and tried to give Trent a little bit. I think he just got a couple up and downs in there. But yeah, it's just a decision we made to go with the guys we had out there.”